1969 Seattle Pilots

From BR Bullpen

		[edit] 1969 ROSTER
		Manager
	4	Joe Schultz
		Coaches
	2	Frankie Crosetti
	4	Sal Maglie
	6	Eddie O'Brien
	7	Ron Plaza
	31	Sibby Sisti
		Pitchers
	23	Jack Aker
	32	Dick Baney*
	13	Steve Barber
	46	Dick Bates
	39	Gary Bell
	56	Jim Bouton
	32	Gene Brabender
	27	Darrell Brandon**
	39	George Brunet**
	40	Bill Edgerton
	14	Mickey Fuentes
	25	John Gelnar
	27	Bob Locker
	42	Skip Lockwood
	28	Mike Marshall
	38	Bob Meyer
	35	John Morris
	43	John O'Donoghue
	33	Marty Pattin
	46	Garry Roggenburk***
	24	Diego Segui
	41	Jerry Stephenson****
	23	Fred Talbot
	41	Dooley Womack
		Catchers
	10	Larry Haney
	15	Jerry McNertney
	17	Jim Pagliaroni
	26	Merritt Ranew
	45	Gary Timberlake
	30	Freddie Velazquez
		Infielders
	30	Ron Clark
	10	John Donaldson
	8	Mike Ferraro
	18	Gus Gil
	34	Greg Goossen
	21	Tommy Harper
	11	John Kennedy
	14	Gordy Lund
	5	Don Mincher
	1	Ray Oyler
	9	Rich Rollins
	22	Fred Stanley
		Outfielders
	20	Wayne Comer
	12	Tommy Davis
	14	Jim Gosger
	8	Mike Hegan
	36	Steve Hovley
	16	Dick Simpson
	28	Sandy Valdespino
	31	Jose Vidal
	12	Danny Walton
	19	Steve Whitaker
	51	Billy Williams
	*	Also wore 45 for a time
	**	Also wore 57 for a time
	***	Also wore 44 and 39 for a time
	****	Also wore 40 for a time

Seattle Pilots / Milwaukee Brewers
Previous	Current	Next
first year of team	1969 Pilots	1970 Brewers

BR Team Page

Record: 64-98, Finished 6th in AL Western Division (1969 AL)

Ballpark: Sicks Stadium

[edit] Season Highlights

Major League Baseball awarded Dewey Soriano and Max Soriano a franchise at the 1967 Winter Meetings in Mexico City on the condition King County would build a domed stadium. In 1968, after a round of public appearances by American League president Joe Cronin, and players Mickey Mantle, Jimmy Piersall, and Carl Yastrzemski, King County voters approved the construction of a domed stadium.

The Seattle Pilots were one of four expansion franchises the began play in 1969. Their first pick in the expansion draft was Don Mincher. The Pilots won their first game on April 8, 1969 against the California Angels, but there were very few other bright spots to the season. Tommy Harper led the American League with 73 stolen bases, Mincher clubbed 25 home runs and made the All-Star team, and reliever Diego Segui went 12-6 with a respectable 3.35 ERA. Still, the team finished in last place with a record of 64-98 as only two regulars (Tommy Davis and Steve Hovley) had a batting average above .250 and no starting pitcher posted an ERA below 4.00. The team's mediocrity, coupled with 31-year-old Sicks Stadium, led to a per-game attendance of little more than 8,000.

Also, the Pilots had no television deal with any local broadcasting station at the time, which also helped lead to the Pilots demise when television was becoming a key marketing tool for teams and source of revenue. Former part-owner Max Soriano said about the cost of broadcasting rights: "The cost of the A.T.& T line was such that we couldn't get advertisers to come forth. There wasn't any revenue for the ballclub by the time you paid the telephone charges."

Add that along with former Cleveland Indians owner William Daley, who the Sorianos met in 1965 when the Indians were considering moving to Seattle, told Seattle officials they had one year to prove themselves or lose the team, withdrew his support for the Pilots. Daley's threat worked as city officials, the Pilots, and local creditors all argued over money owned by Pilots management due to delays to construction to the domed stadium or from lawsuits which later led to the Pilots filing for bankruptcy.

In 1970, the bankrupt team was sold to a group led by Milwaukee lawyer named Bud Selig for $10.8 million and moved for the 1970 season and became the Milwaukee Brewers. The Pilots are best known today as the main subject of Jim Bouton's Ball Four.

[edit] Opening Day Lineup

Tommy Harper, 2b

Mike Hegan, rf

Tommy Davis, lf

Don Mincher, 1b

Rich Rollins, 3b

Jim Gosger, cf

Jerry McNertney, c

Ray Oyler, ss

Marty Pattin, p

[edit] Awards and Honors

All-Star Mike Hegan (replaced by Don Mincher)

[edit] Further Reading

Jim Bouton: Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues (1970)
Kenneth Hogan: The 1969 Seattle Pilots: Major League Baseball's One-Year Team, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2007.
Mark Rousso: "An exhilarating big league bust", in Mark Armour, ed.: Rain Check: Baseball in the Pacific Northwest, Society for American Baseball Research, Cleveland, OH, 2006, pp. 116-122.